Every Piece of Writing Has a Reason One thing I have learned about writing is that nobody truly writes into an empty space for no reason at all. Something usually happened before the first sentence appeared on the page. Somebody made a claim, asked a question, created a problem, challenged an idea, or left something
What Was the Reason? Teaching Writing Through Exigence Read More »
I Never Knew There Were Names for All of This The older I get, the more I realize that the way people talk carries a whole history that most of us never stop to examine. I used to think an accent was simply an accent and a dialect was just another way of pronouncing words.
The Language We Carry With Us Read More »
What the Buss Family Taught Me About Wealth Whenever I hear people talk about generational wealth, the conversation usually begins with making enough money to leave something behind. That sounds simple enough until I look at families that actually accomplished it. The late Jerry Buss bought the Los Angeles Lakers in 1979 as part of
The Hardest Part of Generational Wealth Is Keeping It Together Read More »
The Feelings We Learn to Hide Throughout my life, I have learned that feelings do not always arrive when it is convenient for me to deal with them. Pain can show up when I have responsibilities waiting, anger can rise when I need to remain composed, and grief can appear when everybody expects me to
When We Stop Running From What We Feel Read More »
Matching Energy Is Not Always Strength I have noticed that some of us believe the only way to deal with a difficult person is to become difficult ourselves. Somebody raises their voice, so we raise ours. Somebody gets disrespectful, and we decide they need to see that we can be disrespectful too. Somebody brings hostility
When Somebody Else’s Bad Behavior Starts Controlling Mine Read More »
The Man Who Becomes Easy to Overlook I have learned that the easiest man to take for granted can sometimes become the hardest man to replace. It happens because consistency has a way of making something valuable begin to look ordinary. A good man calls when he says he will call, shows up when he
When a Good Man Makes Love Look Ordinary Read More »
A Lesson I Had to Grow Into One thing my granddaddy told me did not make much sense when I was younger, but age gave it a different meaning. He said, “Stop crying over money you already lost.” At first, that sounded too easy because losing money can make you feel angry, embarrassed, and disrespected
Sometimes the Money Was Tuition Read More »
The Name We Learned For most of my life, the name Jesus sounded so natural that I never had much reason to question where it came from. I heard it in church, read it in the Bible, heard it in prayers, and watched people call on that name when life got hard. But Jesus of
How Yeshua Became Jesus Read More »
Looking at American History From Another Angle One of the most revealing ways I have learned to study American history is to examine what happened whenever the country considered creating something for the public good. I look at health care, Social Security, public education, housing, parks, swimming pools, and other institutions that were supposed to
When the Public Good Had to Include Everybody Read More »
What Boys Learn Before They Understand the Lesson When I look back at the way many boys were raised, I realize emotional training started long before we knew we were being trained. A little boy falls down, starts crying, and somebody tells him to get up because boys are supposed to be tough. He reaches
Becoming a Whole Man: Learning the Emotional Language I Was Never Taught Read More »